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Straight answers about how business consulting works, what it costs, and whether it's worth it for a business your size. No sales language.
What is Creativedial?
Creativedial Services Pvt. Ltd. is a business consultancy based in Lucknow, India, that builds, grows and rebuilds small businesses. Unlike a traditional consultancy that delivers a report and leaves, Creativedial works inside the business — making decisions and executing alongside the founder — under a fixed monthly retainer, and takes no equity. It serves micro-enterprises, new-age entrepreneurs and small startups across India, and every engagement begins with a 90-minute Diagnostic.
Cost and commitment
How much does a business consultant cost in India?
It varies enormously — from a few thousand rupees for a one-off advisory call to several lakhs a month for a large firm. Creativedial charges a fixed monthly retainer with a defined scope, agreed in writing before any work starts. We don't bill by the hour, and the scope doesn't quietly expand mid-engagement. The exact figure depends on which of the three engagements fits your business, and you get a number at the end of the 90-minute Diagnostic, not before we understand the problem.
Do you take equity in the business?
No. We ask for no equity and accept none when it's offered. We charge a clean monthly retainer instead. This is deliberate — taking equity changes whose interests we're serving, and it puts us out of reach of exactly the founders we exist to help.
How long does an engagement last?
It depends which one you need. Venture Build runs 9–12 months with defined milestones, then continues as an ongoing run-and-operate retainer if you want us to keep going. Growth Engine runs 6–12 months against S.M.A.R.T. goals agreed before we start. Business Rebuild runs 12 months with quarterly review gates, so you can measure whether it's working and stop if it isn't.
Can a small startup actually afford a business consultant?
That question is the reason Creativedial exists. Everyone knows PwC, KPMG, EY and Deloitte, but a founder with an idea and a limited budget cannot realistically engage any of them. Our whole model — fixed retainers, defined scope, no equity — is built so that a micro-enterprise or first-time founder can afford serious help at the stage when it changes the outcome most.
What is the Creativedial Diagnostic?
The Diagnostic is a fixed-fee assessment that every engagement starts with. It runs in three parts: a 90-minute conversation, a 2–3 week fixed-fee sprint, and a 90-day roadmap at the end. It tells you where your business stands, where it's leaking money, and what to do next. You keep the findings whether or not you hire us afterwards.
How we work
What's the difference between a consultant and an agency?
An agency executes a brief you write. A consultant advises and hands you a report to act on. Creativedial does neither — we work inside the business, deciding, correcting and executing alongside you until it runs on process rather than luck. At Broken Arrow Retail the board didn't hand us a brief; they gave us the chair next to the CEO for the rebuild.
Which engagement is right for my business?
Pick the sentence that sounds like you. "I have an idea, but no roadmap" means Venture Build, for founders starting something new. "I'm running, but sales are unpredictable" means Growth Engine, which makes demand repeatable through positioning, attraction, conversion and handover. "I've run for years, but growth has stopped" means Business Rebuild — deep diagnosis, repositioning and restructured operations.
What will you tell me if my business idea isn't viable?
We'll tell you, in the first 90 minutes, before you spend money finding out. If the plan, the budget or the idea isn't sustainable, saying so early is the most valuable thing we can do. Sometimes that conversation saves a founder a year and a substantial amount of capital. We would rather lose the engagement than take a retainer for work we don't believe will succeed.
Do you actually run the business, or just advise?
Both, depending on the engagement. For myehaat.in — built for HCL Foundation, the development-sector arm of HCLTech — we handled legal, operations, technology, sales, training and statutory compliance ourselves until, five years on, the platform ran without us. That is what we mean by embedded: we're the operating team until an operating team exists.
What happens after the engagement ends?
The point is that the business keeps running without us. We document the systems, train your team, and hand over qualified leads with the metrics attached. Several of the businesses we built now operate entirely independently — myehaat.in became self-sufficient within five years.
Scope and coverage
Which industries do you work in?
We are sector-agnostic by design. Past and current work spans apparel and D2C, retail, marketplaces, B2B technology, BFSI services, the development sector and CSR, education, aviation training, photography and creative services, manufacturing, hospitality, healthcare services, real estate, and non-profits. Positioning, pricing, demand and operations behave the same way whether you sell apparel or signage — the specifics change, the diagnosis doesn't.
Do you work with businesses outside Lucknow and Delhi?
Yes. Creativedial operates from Lucknow and Delhi NCR and works with businesses across India. Most of the work — diagnosis, positioning, pricing, demand generation and operational restructuring — is done remotely with periodic on-site time where the engagement needs it.
What size of business do you work with?
Micro-enterprises, new-age entrepreneurs and small startups are the core. We also work with new ventures being spun up inside established companies, and with older businesses that have plateaued — Broken Arrow Retail had been trading fifteen years when we were engaged. If you're large enough that the big four consultancies are already calling you, we'll tell you we're probably not the right fit.
Who runs Creativedial?
Creativedial Services Pvt. Ltd. was founded by Dushyant Chauhan, who leads client engagements directly. The firm has spent over a decade working across sectors, and pivoted deliberately from a creative studio into an embedded business consultancy after finding that clients kept asking for marketing when the real problem was their pricing, positioning or business model.
How do I start a conversation?
Book the 90-minute Diagnostic, or message us on WhatsApp at +91 91207 28330. You can also run the free Leak Finder on our homepage first — six questions, sixty seconds, no email required — which shows you which part of your business is losing money before you speak to anyone.
Still deciding?
Run the Leak Finder. It takes sixty seconds, asks for nothing, and shows you where your business is leaking — positioning, pricing, demand, conversion or systems.
Find your leak — freeGive us 90 minutes.
We'll show you where
your business is leaking.
No deck, no pitch, no obligation. A conversation, a hard look at your numbers, and a roadmap you keep either way.